Listening for the words in a quiet corner of the night. The fiction, poetry, and photography of Jason Evans.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Entry #53

You Have No Rightby Karen

They stood at the base of the escalator, Sam’s hand on her wrist, his eyes looking everywhere but at hers. He felt the heft of the gun as it settled under his arm and wondered briefly if she knew it was there, cocooned between them. But then he knew that she did. She knew everything about him.

Travelers brushed by, and she moved aside for a young couple trying to position a stroller sideways on the bottom step. She watched them with a face that said, “That could have been us.”

“Well, I guess this is it,” she said.

He leaned in to make out her words over the sound of the approaching train, and the smell of her hit him like a punch, that scent he had breathed on his skin and his pillow for so long, the smell he had hunted on the things left behind when she had gone. It almost did him in, that scent. It almost made him weaken. It almost made him want to let her go.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he began, and this time he looked straight into her eyes, surprised when his voice came out strong.

“But here’s the thing. They’ll never believe you didn’t know,” she said, and she tipped onto her toes and lightly pressed her lips to his, never taking her eyes away.

“You’ll never convince them you didn’t know,” she said, as he watched her ride upward into the night.

This line: "the smell of her hit him like a punch, that scent he had breathed on his skin and his pillow for so long, the smell he had hunted on the things left behind when she had gone" is awesome! I could picture the story that came before this climax pretty clearly. Great job!

This is excellent writing in your portrayal of the tension between them, and his fatal attraction to her. Wow, nothing like a little passion to rip someones life up into shreds. I wonder what she did? I'm very intrigued.

Did she wish that she and the cop could have been like that couple, or was she silently thankful that it didn't have to come to that? I love the ambiguity there - it leaves us wondering if she really is as heartless and conniving as she appears to be at the end, or is she just trying to save him a whole lot of trouble...